Dahlia pan-holder from "The Workbasket" (ca.1937)

This is the "Dahlia" pan-holder, one of three from the vol.3, no.3 issue of "The Workbasket" -- "Home and Needlecraft for Pleasure and Profit -- Ideas for the Bazaar, the Home, Gifts and Sparetime Moneymakers -- with Many Inexpensive, Easily Made Articles that find a Ready Sale" -- published in Kansas City, ca. 1937 (and generously made available through Antique Pattern Library).  "Frost Tone thread" is vaguely suggested in the pattern, but no gauge or target size is given; I used Lily Sugar 'n Cream in two not-very-dahlia-like-but-high-contrast colors, resulting in a potholder about 9 in./23cm across.  The yarn not in use is simply carried along the round underneath the working yarn, which makes for a lot fewer ends needing to be woven in, although it does mean that the carried color tends to peep through the stitches.  The scalloped petal tips are made with short rows.

(Lily Frost-Tone thread looks from the photos on Ravelry to be about the weight and luster of size 3 perle cotton.) 

There is a short history of "The Workbasket" magazine by Nancy B. on HubPages -- originally "Aunt Martha's Workbasket" but it seems, judging by the relative sizes on the cover of even this fairly-early issue, that most people just called it "The Workbasket".  The magazine was published for an impressive 61 years, changing with the times in the types of patterns and crafts it featured, but finally ceased publication in 1996.  The Antique Pattern Library has a number of issues available, mostly from the 1930s and 40s.

Ladies' Crocheted Spencer (1915) and Princess Julia Crocheted Spencer (1916)

The Columbia Book of Yarn for 1915 contains this pattern for a crocheted spencer, here a sleeveless jacket rather longer than the usual waist- or below-bust length of a spencer.  This version is for a "36 or 38 bust," as are many if not most of the items in this book -- for which we are grateful to the author, Anna Schumacker! -- and is worked in period 4-fold (4-ply) Germantown yarn, which Kim Salazar of "String or Nothing" tells us is roughly equivalent to a modern worsted, e.g. Cascade 220.

A year later, Corticelli revised the pattern* to use their Sweater Silk crochet thread or alternatively, their Princess Pearl Crochet Cotton --

From Corticelli's Lessons in Crochet, Book 1, page 41 (page 43 of the PDF), available free from the Antique Pattern Library.

Note that the Corticelli version is to fit a 34-inch bust, with the suggestion to add more chain stitches to the beginning chain for a larger size, "allowing about six chain stitches to an inch."

Princess Pearl Crochet Cotton seems to have been approximately equivalent to a modern size 8 crochet cotton.

Advertisements for Sweater Silk and Princess Pearl at, respectively, the beginning and end of the Corticelli book.

*Yes, despite it being copyrighted by Columbia's publisher. The Corticelli version rewrote the pattern with their own abbreviations, but otherwise it is the same, even to the (presumably inadvertent) omission of instructions to work the left front.

Shoulder shawl for refugees (1918)

The Junior Red Cross Activities Teachers Manual, published by the American Red Cross in October, 1918, includes suggestions ("not ... presented in detail ... but adaptable to the usual course of study") for a shawl to be knitted or crocheted by students for donation to refugees from France and Belgium, the countries hardest-hit by the fighting of the Great War, which had in fact not yet ended when the manual was published.  There were estimated to have been some quarter-million civilian Belgian refugees to Britain alone, and the American Red Cross helped to provide humanitarian relief to refugees there and in other countries.

It is interesting that the directions for the shawl request that the circular version at least be worked with  a permanent fold in the middle, an unusual feature.  Dark colors were presumed to be preferred by the recipients, Andrea of Unsung Sewing Patterns suspects because of their limited resources for laundering.

Note also that a first-year high school student would be expected to be capable of making the shawl, more-or-less without a pattern!

Knitted items included in the Manual with (basic) patterns are babies' caps (page 326), wash cloths (page 328), and scrub cloths "or trench mops" out of muslin strips "for camp and hospital use" (page 376).

Two "shawl-scarves" and a pelerine-collar (1861)

"On mete un boutonnière à chaque bout de chale, et un gros bouton à la pointe de derrière, atin de croiser le chàle, et d'en fixer les extrémités sur ce bouton; nous engageons toute nos lectrices à faire ce chàle-écharpe, qui leur évitera des rhumes, et peut-étre des fluxions de poitrine" = We put a buttonhole on each end of the shawl [pictured at left], and a large button on the back point, in order to cross the shawl, and to fix the ends of it on this button; we urge all our readers to make this shawl-scarf, which will save them colds, and perhaps chest inflammations.

 

 

The French fashion magazine "La Mode Illustrée" -- similar in content and intended audience to "Godey's" et al. -- published these three patterns early in its career, in January 1861.  The two "shawl-scarves" are knitted, while the pelerine-collar is crocheted. "The fashion for cloth coats, infinitely less warm than quilted coats, resulted in the adoption of the shawl-scarf, to which we are devoting two designs today" -- admirably practical!

The first shawl appears to be an early instance of a sontag -- a waist-length U-shaped garment that crosses over the chest and wraps around the waist to the back, and is fastened with buttons on the ends, or with ties that come around to the front.

"Block for a slumber robe" (1891)

 

This "block for a slumber robe" is the earliest-known appearance of what later became known as the granny square.  It is from Butterick's The Art of Crocheting (1891).

Thanks to Hannah at HanJan Crochet for her post on the history of the granny square!

"Boudoir Jacket no.476" (1917)

This crocheted boudoir jacket pattern is from Corticelli's "Lessons in Knitting and Crochet, book 6," available at Antique Pattern Library.  A boudoir or bed jacket was a waist-length garment, often knitted or crocheted, worn over one's nightgown while reading or perhaps breakfasting in bed; it was most popular from about the 1920s to the 40s.  (Joanne Thompson theorizes, quite logically, that the garment's decline in popularity in the 1950s was due most likely to the rise in central heating, that an extra layer of warmth simply wasn't needed any more.)

Fatima at Crochetology by Fatima has a long post detailing her making of this boudoir jacket.

In the Winter 2021 issue of "PieceWork" magazine, Pat Olski has rewritten the jacket pattern into modern format, adding to very handsome effect the Crocheted Coat Fastener no.321a from Corticelli's "Lessons in Crochet, book 2," also available in its original format at Antique Pattern Library.

 The boudoir jacket in "Weldon's Practical Crochet, 194th series" (no.423, vol.36) from about the same date,

is of very similar construction, though rather more dégagé in appearance.  Note also the similarity between these particular boudoir jackets and the hug-me-tight worn by Trini Alvarado as Meg in the 1994 film of "Little Women" which, if it is indeed an authentic 1860s garment, would certainly be an ancestor --

"La Mode Shawl for Mourning" (1862)

This shawl for mourning wear is from Mlle. Riego's La Mode Winter Book (1862).  There were strict customs for mourning, with different garments, fabrics, and quantities of black as well as specific time frames depending on one's relationship to the deceased -- deepest mourning for an immediate family member, "second" mourning for a more distant one, with "half" mourning being the lessening before returning to ordinary dress.  (See "Mourning in the 1860s" at Sew Historically and "Stages of (Victorian) Mourning and Fifty Shades of Purple" at Lilac and Bombazine, among others, for examples.)

Mlle. Riego's pattern is for a half-mourning shawl, as mauve, grey, or white were the first colors allowed after the year during which a widow, for example, would wear deepest mourning.  An 1860s-era knitter could, of course, knit pretty much any garment in black and call it mourning wear, but this shawl is interesting in that it is designed specifically for that purpose.

All of the patterns in this book except for the mourning shawl are in "tricot écossais," or what we now usually call Tunisian crochet.  

Note that the shawl pattern is written using British terms, that is, its treble stitch is equivalent to the American DC -- but it is otherwise very simple, being in what we now call, perhaps because of shawls like this one, "granny stitch".

The Jenny Lind collar

 

Jenny Lind, 1850. (Library of Congress, LC-DIG-ppmsca-38268). Lind was noted for her modest clothing and demeanor, in the days when women on the stage were thought to be little better than prostitutes.

 These collars are all of the "Jenny Lind" type, named for the wildly-popular Swedish soprano of the 1840s and 50s.  Note the slight differences here and there, which may be due to local fashion, the date, or the ladies themselves.

Said to be dated 1852.

 

Maria L. Smiley, Philadelphia, 1851. (Historical Society of Pennsylvania) 

 

 This young woman has gussied up her collar with a wide ribbon underneath.

 Mrs. Warren published a collar of "Swedish lace à la Jenny Lind" in her Point Lace Crochet Collar Book (Second Series) in 1847 --

Two sonntags

Sontags -- or sometimes, though rarely, "sonntags" as here -- apparently had a revival in the 1910s, when Lion Brand Yarns included two patterns, one knitted and one crocheted, in their 1912 book A Manual of Worsted Work. Both featured the faux ermine border so popular with their grandmothers in the 1850s.  It's a shame that this useful garment didn't catch on (again), but perhaps that is because in 1912 it doesn't quite suit the very-fashionable "pigeon breast" puff at the waist of the S-curve figure as modeled by Miss Crochet in these photos -- but historical knitters now might appreciate the Lion patterns for their more explicit instructions than the earlier generation's!

"Victorian Slum House"

Adrian and Wiebke Bird.

A portrait from episode 2 (1870s) of "Victorian Slum House" showing a crocheted shawl, worn by shopkeeper Mrs. Bird with the ends wrapped around her waist and tied at the back.

"Meg's Hug-Me-Tight"

In a deft little touch by the filmmakers of "Little Women" (1994), some of the clothes are worn by one sister in an early scene and then handed-down to a younger one later, surely just what would have happened in a not-very-well-off family in any period, and even more so in wartime when clothing was scarce.  Meg and Amy each wear a gray hug-me-tight with black or dark-brown trim, though I'm not quite sure if it's the same one or if both have their own version of this useful garment.

 Note also the piece of crocheted lace tacked onto the edge of the shelf!

There isn't (yet!) a known historical source for this particular garment, though as far as I know no one has yet asked the film's costume designer, Colleen Atwood. That said, it is clearly well-rooted in period garments -- only a short step from the V-shaped sontag, with a side piece added to fully enclose the wearer's torso -- and we might even say, "If it isn't a period garment, it should be!"

Inspired by the garment, Michele DuNaier developed a pattern for it, now available for purchase via Ravelry.

(DuNaier wonders aloud, "Was it a shrug? A pelerine? A fichu? Or perhaps a sontag (AKA 'Bosom Buddy')? We finally called it a 'Hug-Me-Tight,' defined by Merriam-Webster as 'a woman’s short usually knitted sleeveless close-fitting jacket -- first known use 1860', which fits right in with the Civil War era Little Women.")